Inclusion Exclusion Principle theorem and examples

The inclusion-exclusion principle: Let X be a finite set and let and let be a set of n properties satisfied by (s0me of) the elements of X. Let denote the set of those elements of X that satisfy the property . Then, the size of the set of all those elements that do not satisfy any one of these properties is given by

.

Proof:

The proof will show that every object in the set X is counted the same number of times on both the sides. Suppose and assume that x is an element of the set on the left hand side of above equation. Then, x has none of the properties . We need to show that in this case, x is counted only once on the right hand side. This is obvious since x is not in any of the and . Thus, X is counted only once in the first summand and is not counted in any other summand since for all i. Now let x have k properties say , , , (and no others). Then x is counted once in X. In the next sum, x occurs times and so on. Thus, on the right hand side, x is counted precisely,

times. Using the binomial theorem, this sum is which is 0 and hence, x is not counted on the right hand side. This completes the proof. QED.